Flooding of state schools by ex indie students fails to materialise

[zaxxon]

An interesting story, given all the doomsaying we saw on here last year following the VAT policy change. It's great news that more families received their first choice of school this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

If only we had mechanisms for collecting progressive taxes such as income tax, CGT, stamp duty, IHT etc etc.

We already tax high earners pretty high compared to other European countries, how much higher should income tax be? IHT is pretty steep too? Of course increases in some of these things would also impact parents who pay private despite the narrative they are simply frugal.

I think people are just doing what they possibly can to keep their children in decent schools to be honest, if it means they have to work longer hours or take on extra work they are doing it. Excluding those who have inherited wealth that is.

A much higher percentage of children in France go to private school than in the UK.

Only 7% of children go to private school in the UK and 58% of private schools in the UK are special schools.

It's a good question and I think the answer – if there is one – would be very complex. A lot of it is political. Taxing earned income (at a high level) is seen as "penalising initiative" and "stifling growth" and "edging towards socialism" etc etc by certain commentators. It's exactly the kind of criticism that the Labour party is desperate to deflect, to show they're not that kind of party any more; you won't get anywhere in politics nowadays with the old-style leftie Socialist Worker rallying cries. So they try to tax the privileges that wealth brings rather than the wealth itself.

There's also the historical anomaly that the independent schools had charitable status, which rankled with some people who could never have hoped to benefit, and was seen as an injustice.

One thing I haven't yet seen mentioned: people keep saying that moving the children of the better-off to state schools will not bring any economic benefit to the Treasury, because the VAT won't be paid. But it may yet bring some benefit to the schools themselves. My DCs' schools (one grammar, one state comp) are always asking parents for donations. If state schools get an influx of stockbrokers' kids over the next few years, it might boost their coffers considerably.

If state schools get an influx of stockbrokers' kids over the next few years, it might boost their coffers considerably.

🤣🤣🤣
When my children move to the state sector, I will be cutting my working hours because I don’t need to fund school fees. The money we do have from my income will go towards tutoring, extra curricular, pension and holidays.

The school will no doubt benefit from having parents invested in their children’s education when children go state but they’re dreaming if they think there is any chance parents are suddenly going to give the money they spent on fees to state schools.

The school will no doubt benefit from having parents invested in their children’s education when children go state but they’re dreaming if they think there is any chance parents are suddenly going to give the money they spent on fees to state schools.

I suppose it depends on the parents. Our state schools raises thousands because contrary to the narrative plenty of state families have money & are invested in their dcs education.

Taxing earned income (at a high level) is seen as "penalising initiative" and "stifling growth" and "edging towards socialism" etc etc by certain commentators. It's exactly the kind of criticism that the Labour party is desperate to deflect, to show they're not that kind of party any more; you won't get anywhere in politics nowadays with the old-style leftie Socialist Worker rallying cries. So they try to tax the privileges that wealth brings rather than the wealth itself.

That's exactly what I meant but you said it much better @zaxxon

The school will no doubt benefit from having parents invested in their children’s education when children go state but they’re dreaming if they think there is any chance parents are suddenly going to give the money they spent on fees to state schools.

Not ALL the money! But adults who can spend thousands per term on their kids' education might think nothing of putting an extra £100 on Parentpay once in a while.

Plus, think of the raffle prizes ... !!!

Some of the raffle prizes at my friends primary are insane! One of my friends schools did a fundraising for an extra minibus. About 5 parents just gave thousands.

Tbh I think this is one reason why some states are so good, parents are pretty invested.

7% (over 1 in 20 children) at any one time, the number who go at some point in their education is higher. I have read various figures for that, the lowest being 10% (1 in 10) and the highest 28% (nearly 1 in 3) (I wonder if the latter includes early years?). The percentage varies by area of the country.

I am always surprised when people see these as small numbers/tiny proportions.

@meuntilmarch2025 even prior to VAT increases, I considered holding on to our state place for a few months, because you never know about redundancy etc etc. Nothing to do with feeling victimised.

I don’t see why private schools were exempt from VAT in the first place - it’s not like they were really charities (benefiting those in need of help) - there is a free education available for all.
Our local private school rents out its swimming pool to swim schools- you can pay for lessons there, but otherwise does zilch for the community. I really can’t see how they ever were considered proper charities.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption is the right thing to do - they are businesses providing a luxury service.

Still a lot lower than France.

A lot of private schools never had charitable status. Like most countries, we didn’t tax education so there wasn’t VAT on school fees. If we were still in the EU, Labour would not have been able to have this policy.

Oh ffs why are people still so ignorant.

Private schools that have charitable status still have charitable status.

Delivery of education on a not-for-profit basis meets the definition of a charitable objective just as much as providing services in sports or healthcare or dozens of other things that can generally make the world a better place.

Lots of charities charge money for their services. If the money they have coming in is equal to what they are spending on achieving their objectives they are fine to do so.

If any charity is selling goods or services that are liable for VAT then they have to collect that VAT on behalf of HMRC, same as any profit-making non-charity. This doesn't affect and is not affected by charitable status.

Education used to be exempt from VAT. It is illegal to charge VAT on Education under EU law but post-brexit we can ignore that and it is now a VATable service. This is the same for schools that are charities (not-profits) and that are profit-making.

Every single person who continues to comment on these threads while clearly being totally ignorant of these facts really makes themselves look rather thick. This information hasn't been hidden in secret, it is readily available for anyone who cares to check that they understand what they are talking about before sharing their opinions.

As others have said, most applying for private always did a backup state offer, so we won't know til we see what percentage of offers are taken up.

^^This. Way too early to see any effects. Many schools are trying to mitigate the VAT for the moment by slightly reducing fees, plus parents are averse to moving in-year.

As it’s been introduced mid-year, you won’t see the effects until the start of the next academic year (not just in students moving private-state but also the numbers of students taking up new places).

Just because you think “charity” means a certain thing, doesn’t mean that’s actually what it means. The legal definition of a charity includes all sorts of objectives, not just “benefiting those in need of help”. These include education, research, medicine, the military, ecology, emergency services, conservation, animal welfare, and so on.

A donkey sanctuary in Wales might only have five old donkeys, but it still has a charitable objective and meets public benefit requirements, even if it helps no humans in need and no-one in England ever gets to visit.

Schools that are charities are not businesses. They have no shareholders, cannot make a profit and must be structured legally as charities under Charity Commission guidelines. Everyone on these threads who keeps on saying “but they’re businesses” just makes it obvious that they have zero idea what a charity is OR what a business is.

It’s very easy to declaim what you think a charity is, but five minutes spent on the website of the Charity Commission actually looking it up would be more accurate and useful.

In what way does the French government disincentivise parents from sending their dcs to private school? It’s cheap as chips in France to send a child to private school in France in comparison to the UK because the government has a policy that every child should have access to education and gives the state funded element to the private school. The parents then only pay the extra top up. Excluding the VAT element, which as previously stated is not legal in the EU, that would pretty much halve fees for the average private school were the policy in place over here.

Was not contradicting you, just adding.

You're right, but you (and @RatedDoingMagic above) try telling the entire UK electorate of 44m people to go and look it up, and see how far you get. The fact is that it got people's backs up when they realised fee-paying schools were technically charities - charities which most of us could never benefit from - and Labour capitalised on that.

It's a funny thing about how some of us are able to simultaneously value & respect other people's wealth, and yet resent the privileges such wealth brings. Some people - myself included - feel that hard workers who grow the economy should be rewarded, and yet also feel that fat cats in Ferraris are despicable emblems of our unequal society. (I'm putting it a little too strongly here for effect. And of course not everyone would agree. But it is common.) Politicians take advantage of this psychological contradiction all the time.

We can definitely say a minimum, absolutely for definite, that the very worst of the scaremongering stories that were being drivelled out by the predictable vested interests, of many tens of thousands of defections happening straight off the bat, were always ludicrous and have been shown up as such.

But the real medium to long term impact will always be essentially unknowable.

We could even see an overall increase in private school numbers, pupils and providers (including through expansions like the one linked below), and still see arguments, maybe even plausible arguments, that 'market forces', unburdened by the change in VAT, would have seen a far bigger increase, and hence less greater alleviation of pressure on the public purse, etc etc etc.

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/elite-dulwich-school-alleyns-to-open-offshoots-north-of-the-rive-for-first-time-in-400-year-history-b1213399.html

Disagree.

The information available suggests that the vast majority of parents sending their children to independent schools also apply for state school places so that they have a backup. The fact there has been little impact on Y7 applications therefore tells us nothing. Any exodus from independent schools will manifest itself in an increase in in-year applications and a higher proportion of those offered Y7 places actually starting at state schools in September.

Note that I am not saying there is, or will be, a mass exodus. I suspect that those opposing VAT have overstated the likely movement and the government has underestimated it, but I don't know. However, if there is an exodus going on, Y7 applications is not the place to look for it.

Someone on one of these threads (I can't remember which one, there are so many!) said the rapid increase in the number of private schools is directly related to Labour doing away (mostly) with the Grammar School system.

Time and time again, parents are showing that they really want greater choice in education for their children: more academic streams, selectivity in some way - they really wouldn't need to turn to fee paying if the state system accommodated these desires (which really, are most of us). Parents constantly do this via buying houses in certain school catchments, and parents who don't realise how to research this choose private as an alternative. The religious/faith schools have got their way and can select away with no penalty. The few remaining Grammars are a complete bun fight to get into, and the escalating tutoring expectations only exist because there aren't enough of them to satisfy parent demand. However: the comp brigade won't be satisfied until no selectivity exists anywhere - and they are the ones now in power. This is so completely at odds with the way people actually behave and what they want.

The governing principle now is to lift up the lowest common denominator, the poorest, the lowest achieving towards better outcomes (which is a lovely idea in theory, and as a Labour voter, this is definitely the outcome I want to vote for). However I'm coming to the slow realisation that every time Labour do come in, this happens AT THE EXPENSE of the more able/better off, at the expense of choice, and at the expense of finding best-fit options for parents and children alike. This is just bad for everyone, including the ones at the bottom of the pile. The most able and wealthy are the ones eventually paying all the taxes anyway: they are necessary to the system in order to support the "uplift" outcomes desired by all. It takes two hands to clap doesn't it? If you take away their choices, they will simply compensate by yet another "market force" as someone upthread put it. The ones at the bottom will continue to stay there.